Will She End Up In The Food Chain?
As the heat from the recent meat adulteration food scare dies to a smouldering ember, you can be certain there will be a new scandal on its way to shock the supermarket consumer. It might not break in the UK, but be sure there’s something in the offing to cause concern about where our food comes from, how it’s processed, packaged and marketed.
So what can responsible brands do to combat the uneasiness most shoppers feel with the food chain and those running it?
I suggest a good starting point is to talk to the consumer. It’s now well within the capability of most brands and retailers to build web campaigns that open a window on how they produce food.
And yes, video is a great starting point for showing worried consumers how food is produced.
Provenance videos have gone out of fashion when they should be top of the agenda. The suspicious amongst us might think there’s a reason for this; something to hide possibly?
I think it’s because brands haven’t really done them that well in the past and that the ones that do exist, even if they are of the highest quality, are made by marketers rather than documentary makers.
When was the last time you saw a video put out by a retailer showing farming like it is; gritty, tough and stressful, even for welfare conscious farmers?
Brands can only benefit from telling the truth about how the food they sell is grown, slaughtered, transported, packed and stored.
This might be messy and involve elements that are at odds with brand messages. But a good video producer together with a bold brand manager will reconcile the contradictions in an innovative, challenging way that shows it like it is and reconnects the food with the consumer.